One down, one to go

I just returned from the first part of my summer holidays. I went back home to Vancouver and I’ll apologize now to all the folks who I didn’t get to contact while I was there. Two weeks just isn’t enough time for everything and everyone. One of the big events of this trip was my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary. Yep, 50th. The official date was in May but since I wasn’t able to get away at that time, my brother and I decided to hold the actual party in July when I could actually make it. Thanks to everyone who made it from far off places. You helped make it a huge success.

The weather was pretty amazing this trip. Last year I went in August and it was one of the wettest and coldest on record to the point where I actually had to invest in a rain jacket. This time, Vancouver is in the midst of a heat wave with temperatures in the 40 celcius range that have only been seen five times since around 1870. The other day saw northern BC hotter than Los Angeles, California. Not something Vancouverites are used to at all. Also amazing was the deluge along with Mother nature’s own fireworks show that lasted for hours a couple days before I left. Also very unusual for Vancouver. Anyone still want to argue that the world’s weather isn’t changing?

Aside from all the types of things I like to do when I’m back in Vancouver like skimboarding at the beach, running in the endowment lands of UBC and hanging at my favourite little coffee shop in Point Grey, I tried to be a little bit of a tourist in my own town. I decided I really wanted to go zip trekking at Whistler so my friend Sara and I headed up to give it a go. If you’re not afraid of heights, I definitely recommend it. We did the longer, higher Eagle route with the longest line being about 2200 feet long with a drop of around 20 stories! We had a bit of a cross-wind slowing us down so didn’t quite reach the 80 kph top speed. A rush nonetheless. We timed the weather perfectly since just as we were finishing up dinner, thunder and lightning (why isn’t it called lightning and thunder since the lightning comes first?) rolled in and it rained steadily almost all the way back to Vancouver. The video below was taken while I was shooting along. Unfortunately, there’s no way of controlling the spin.

The second part of my summer holidays will be spent in Japan visiting friends and attempting to see new sights (and returning to the ones I just have to see each time I go). The nice thing about this trip is that the cost of the flight is being covered by Asia Miles.